forced to let his dagger fall. The lady picked it up, and, giving it to
her husband, held the friar with all her strength by the hood. Then her
husband dealt the friar several blows with the dagger, so that at last
he cried for mercy and confessed his wickedness. The gentleman was
not minded to kill him, but begged his wife to go home and fetch their
people and a cart, in which to carry the friar away. This she did,
throwing off her robe, and running as far as her house in nothing but
her shift, with her cropped hair.

The gentleman's men forthwith hastened to assist their master to bring
away the wolf that he had captured. And they found this wolf in the
road, on the ground, where he was seized and bound, and taken to the
house of the gentleman, who afterwards had him brought before the
Emperor's Court in Flanders, when he confessed his evil deeds.

And by his confession and by proofs procured by commissioners on the
spot, it was found that a great number of gentlewomen and handsome
wenches had been brought into the monastery in the same fashion as the
friar of my story had sought to carry off this lady; and he would have
succeeded but for the mercy of Our Lord, who ever assists those that put
their trust in Him. And the said monastery was stripped of its spoils
and of the handsome maidens that were found within it, and the monks
were shut up in the building and burned with it, as an everlasting
memorial of this crime, by which we see that there is nothing more
dangerous than love when it is founded upon vice, just as there is
nothing more gentle or praiseworthy when it dwells in a virtuous heart.
(2)

2 Queen Margaret states (_ante_, p. 5) that this tale was
told by M. de St.-Vincent, ambassador of Charles V., and